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Asian Monetary Fund on the cards?

17 June 2008

The long-awaited multilateralisation of the Chiang Mai initiative was agreed in early May in Madrid on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank annual meeting. The Chiang Mai initiative is a series of bilateral agreements among the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and neighbours South Korea, China and Japan (see Update56, 52, 46). The so called ASEAN+3 group agreed to set up an $80 billion fund with 80 per cent of the money coming from the non-ASEAN members. Full details of surveillance mechanisms and conditions for use of the money have not yet been settled. Separately India signed a $3 billion bilateral currency swap arrangement with Japan.

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